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Match Report:

Scorecard

Kohli, de Villiers rewrite history

Star batsmen blast centuries in record stand for the Royal Challengers Bangalore

The match in a tweet: Twin Tons! Kohli and ABdV put on a world record partnership of 229 as RCB thrash Gujarat by a whopping 144 runs.

The heroes: AB De Villiers and Virat Kohli continue to write their own scripts and redefine the art of batting. The two best batsmen in the world both scored centuries - De Villiers 129 from 52, Kohli 109 from 55 - to propel the Royal Challengers to a score of 248 from 20 overs. Between them the pair hit an incredible 20 sixes and 15 fours in a partnership of 229 from 98 balls. De Villiers started with a bang, hitting four boundaries in the first seven balls he faced. For the next hour it was demolition job as the South African executed every shot in the book to bring up his ton in just 43 balls. Kohli, on the other hand, played second fiddle to De Villiers early on before going berserk at the end. The Indian star bought up his fifty in 39 balls but in his next 16 balls he scored 59 runs to bring up his third IPL ton this season. Batting simply cannot get any better than this.

WATCH: De Villiers hammers unbeaten 129

The records: The partnership of 229 between De Villiers and Kohli was the highest in T20 cricket and it was also just the second instance in T20 cricket of two batsmen from the same team scoring a hundred. RCB's score of 248 was second highest this IPL season and, incredibly, De Villiers and Kohli added 112 runs in the final five overs; previously no team had scored more than 100 in the last five overs of a T20 innings. Click here for all the numbers from the AB-Kohli show

Quick Single: The numbers behind an incredible evening

The victim: Mystery spinner Shivil Kaushik might have bamboozled batsmen during his initial matches, but tonight he ran into an AB-Kohli tornado. Handed the ball by Brendon McCullum to bowl the penultimate over of the innings, Kaushik was hammered to all parts by Kohli as the over went for 6,4,6,6,6,2, adding 30 runs and giving Kaushik the figures of 3-0-50-0.

WATCH: Kohli hammers third century in seven innings

The six: There were 20 of them in the Bangalore innings but the one from AB De Villiers from the second ball he faced was an absolute gem. Facing the mystery spinner Kaushik, De Villiers jumped on the back foot and lifted the ball over the cover boundary for an extraordinary six.

The Aussie: Aaron Finch continues to shine for the Lions as a middle-order batsmen, adding a run-a-ball 37 in the run chase. Batting against all odds, Finch showed great character in hitting three fours and six to ensure the Lions at least managed to cross the 100 mark.

The maiden: We think Praveen Kumar deserves a mention for his maiden during Bangalore's run fest. In an innings where the Gujarat bowlers were belted for an average of 12 runs an over, Kumar's first over maiden has to be saluted as a statistical anomaly on an amazing evening.

The race to the play-offs: Bangalore's huge win keeps their slim finals hopes alive and they now must win their next two games against Punjab (home) and Delhi (away) and hope Kolkata and Delhi keeping losing. For the Lions, a poor net run-rate means they need to win one of their final two matches to be guaranteed a finals berth.

The next stop: It doesn’t get any easier for the Royal Challengers as they take on Kolkata at the Eden Gardens on Monday. Gujarat have a few days to cool off before hosting the Knight Riders in their final home match on Thursday.